On the one hand, that article is saying something similar to the problem with the Second Life guy-- he was using his intimacy points with someone not his wife. But this paragraph kind of sums up what's wrong with the Yahoo article:

Your mate may believe that opposite-sex friendships are harmless because his or her friend is married. But that's just dead wrong! Many friendships outside of marriage start as "just friends" and grow closer and more intimate. Because these friendships are so fresh, interesting and compelling, it's not long before the two people involved start to think they are more compatible than their own life partners. It's a small step from that realization to the development of a full-blown affair, and the destruction of a marriage.

Which is saying that all close friendships must become romances, which in itself is kind of ridiculous. But maybe someone who has experienced this can comment.

Oh, I have read about them, Hecubus. Because my friends see urban blight on the internets and think of me. Which is either sick or quite touching...I haven't decided.

It's kind of weird because the team Emmett played for also had a bunch of black kids, but he was basically one of the White Kid Ringers. He was recruited by this coach (who is black) and Emmett likes the coach, and they were training with wooden bats (cool!) and paddle gloves (basically they were playing games with special training baseball mitts that force you to use good technique because they don't have a pocket to catch the ball). So it was fun and interesting for Emmett, and he was getting a high level of coaching. (The coach had been a minor league ball player.)

So it was basically just low-key fun baseball, barely a notch above a pickup game and suddenly they're in the championships and we've got a couple players (Emmett and Matthew) from the District champions putting them over the top.

It was all legal and fair, but it was sort of not. I don't think our team would've won without the contributions of Emmett and Matthew (who pitched four innings of shut out baseball). It was a relatively close game, 7-4, but it wound up being this weird nexus of race and class and competition and baseball and pushing the edge of what's fair.

Frankly, it was one of those situations where it was really about class but that picture is always complicated by race in America. Emmett's a good ballplayer, but that's partly because he's played SO many more games on his tournament team than the average little leaguer. (We played 30 games in 45 days at one point. A normal season is 18 games.) And tournament teams are mostly an upper middle class activity because they require a fair amount of money and a huge commitment of time and energy from the parents.

Here's the story of the team we beat.

There was a big local response to the first article.

A really good article on race, class and Little League

Book porn: [link]

Books turned into work of art.

Is it just me, or does this article have an undercurrent of "Wimmens shouldn't be allowed to have male friends once they belong to their boyfriend"?

Ick. Why is the answer automatically "Because they're probably having an affair" and not "Because you're a paranoid control freak who needs to learn about trust and platonic friendships"?

Because the array of possible relationships in between "co-worker I sometimes have lunch with" and "co-worker I'm having an affair with" is a pretty wide spectrum. (I myself have managed to have lunch with several of my co-workers without sleeping with any of them. I must have supernatural powers of self-control.)

[eta: And just to point out the obvious, if you're going to be paranoid about your partner having friends, why limit it to the OPPOSITE-sex ones?]

Oh, and the LJ porn has been deleted, so it's safe for NYers to go back in.

Do you guys remember me talking about the family friend who was in prison for killing his best friend? It was a whole mess of a situation, where the friend had the gun, and was apparently depressed, and who knows what really happened. Anyway, the manslaughter conviction got turned over on appeal! There was still a gun charge, but apparently the time he's already served will cover that.

Possibly the most incredible thing about the whole situation is that the friend's family started going to my parents' church, and they are all really close now.

Also, creepily, I woke up around 7 after dreaming that I woke up at my parents' house to find them both crying on the sofa, but I woke up in real life before I found out why they were crying. It was reassuring to see the email from my father about Andrew was sent at about 7:15.

I still want to call my grandmother to make sure she's not dead!

Eeeee, Jesse! That's so sad.

Today is going to be much more productive than yesterday, I'm not letting headache get me down, damn it. :: stiffens upper lip, girds loins ::

I'm definitely feeling off-kilter this morning.

You know, all my Law & Order watching makes me forget just how slowly the justice system actually moves -- the shooting was in 2002, Andrew was convicted in 2005, and the Appeals Court just ruled. That's a damn long time. [link]

We are up and have had waffles and mac has had a few episodes of Justice League. Now it is time for shower and then we will be off to the city to meet up with his uncle. They will be off to ride the Staten Island Ferry and explore downtown, and I will go to see fictional boyfriend, Jason Bourne.